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One of the recurring themes in the movies, poker or otherwise, is the young, cocky kid taking on the older guy. The challenger vs. The Champ. Many westerns (who’s faster on the draw?) have that theme. It appears in military films with the over-confident recruit matched up against the Drill Sergeant. It’s the theme of “The Hustler,” the classic movie about pool, and it is the theme of the classic movie about poker, “The Cincinnati Kid.” A new movie about poker, “Lucky You,” currently in production, has a father vs. son, old gun vs. young gun face off (Academy Award winner Robert Duvall vs. Eric Bana of “Munich”). Where did they get this father-son story? Well, there is top poker pro Doyle Brunson and his son Todd, top poker pro Barry Greenstein and his son, Joe Sebok, and top poker pro Dewey Tomko and his son, Derek. The older pros are genetically growing their own young guns! Burt Reynolds is shooting a new movie, “Deal,” in New Orleans at the time of this writing. In the movie, Reynold's character - an ex-gambler - teaches a hot-shot college student how to “play the player,” vs. just the cards. They have a falling out which eventually finds them competing against each other in a World Poker Tour championship. Poker pro Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari and his buddy and fellow poker pro, Phil “Unabomber” Laak make appearances in the flick. The World Poker Tour (WPT) brings their distinctive background to the movie set and features appearances by WPT commentators Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten, and Courtney Friel. Today, in the World Series of Poker (WSOP), thousands of young amateurs take on the big pros. At just about every table, there is the young kid facing such legendary WSOP champions as Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim Preston. But there is a whole other tier that has come along after Doyle and Slim such as Doyle’s son, Todd, a champion in his own right, Howard Lederer, and Phil Ivey. The young poker guns at the WSOP may face several different generations of “old guns.” Ivey, for example, is only 30 and is probably the world’s greatest player. He may face off against the 72 year old Doyle Brunson. At the same table may be the 21, 22, and 23 year olds gunning for Ivey. These televised tournaments are providing more authentic drama than the fictionalized movies of old. The Director who started filming “The Cincinnati Kid” was Sam Peckinpah, most famous for “The Wild Bunch,” which one reviewer called, “a brutal picture that was by several thousand red gallons the most graphically violent Western ever made and one of the most violent movies of all time.” Peckinpah was fired four days into “The Kid” over a dispute with the producer about a nude scene. Norman Jewison, a younger director who had more TV than film experience, was hired to replace him. Old gun, young gun. From “The Kid” in 1965 to “Lucky You” and “Deal” in 2006, the story is the same: there once was a great poker player who is being challenged by the new kid in town. And in time he will be challenged by another new kid and so it goes. (c) 2006 Murphy James
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